... and waiting

If all else had followed the actual pattern of recent decades, but the number of ordinations to the priesthood had not decreased, then the Church, instead of worrying about the increasingly urgent concerns brought about by the very real shortage of priests, would have been gradually filling itself with men who should not have been ordained. A logical corollary of such a situation is that those men should not have been accepted for training. Thank God we are where we are rather than in that hard to imagine situation.

The lack of new names entering the seminaries is because men are not being called to give their lives in the way in which we have all become so accustomed. We hear concerns, and are ourselves concerned, about the lack of vocations when the cause of our worry is the lack of men stepping forward. These are two completely different sides to the same question. If men were still being called in numbers to the priesthood as we generally understand it, they would still be responding with the same ‘Yes’. There is no reason for genuine vocations to be refused by individuals more frequently today than ten, twenty or fifty years ago; and there are no grounds – other than essential reasons for both discernment and rigorous assessment in the selection process – for the Church to refuse entry to those stepping forward in response to genuine calls.

It may be easy for me, as a person who does not have a vocation to the priesthood, to imagine that I might be turned away from any thought of becoming a priest by my own take on the public perception of the priesthood today. If, in the wake of so many image-shattering scandals, I made the assumption that most people see any member of the clergy as a potential paedophile, I would find it well nigh impossible to place myself in such a position, and therefore am not surprised at the present situation. But I can never accurately assess what I have not experienced. I do not have a vocation to the priesthood, but my own experiences in the growth of my spiritual life tell me that I can gain nothing by using my imagination in the above way. I know that apparently minor and even insignificant things can have not only negative consequences, whether real or imagined, but profound and lasting effects on one’s outlook, confidence, and ability to rise above unfavourable attitudes and false accusations. I can only imagine how powerful a genuine vocation must be in the life of a priest, both before and after ordination, but the comparatively little I know tells me that persons called by God in that way will be able to follow their path regardless of any such widespread concerns. Their vocations are unstoppable. Their potential for good is immense, and much of their power is for the awakening of others to the experience of God’s presence; for disturbing them, and leading them to an encounter that will bring into the open their own calls to participate in a renewed consciousness that we are all essential parts of Christ’s Church. Every one of us is called, and each of us is graced and blessed with the gifts we need to achieve the intended fulfilment of our call. But answering the call will probably be discomforting; disquieting; challenging; but always inspiring.

‘All success we owe to the grace of God. We must not forget that the grace given us is the grace for struggle and not the grace for peace; that we are warriors, athletes, ascetics; that like St. Paul (2 Tim 4:7-8) we must fight on to the end if we would merit the crown.’ (Adolphe Tanquerey. The Spiritual Life (227))

Those words were written for priests and for those studying for the priesthood, but they apply to all of us. The greater involvement of the laity is as unstoppable as the vocations of priests. Recognizable vocations have so drastically reduced in number over the years, but the answer to most of the Church’s dilemmas lies in an inspired and fully awakened harmony between the ordained priesthood and a spiritually mature and committed laity.

The very first time I made a note of words which seemed of particular importance to me, was while reading an article, ‘What Parish Adult Education is all about’, in Priests and People magazine, Feb 1992. Writing about parish teachers and catechists, it said, ‘The most common reason for them starting in the first place was that they had had to fill a gap in the parish programme. This was often done reluctantly or only after considerable nagging by the vicar or parish priest. ... a gloomy recruitment picture ... a kind of crisis management ...’ . My pencilled note, added some time after copying out those words, reads ‘How can anything grow this way?’

It disappoints and worries me to be made aware, through my present thoughts, that in the intervening years so little seems to have changed for the better. We still await something: a change of some sort which feels overdue, and which will surely come. But it is a change that will not truly manifest itself until those who are being called are ready to be caught up in it; it will not allow them to be left behind. Indeed if they are truly being called it will be impossible for them not to take their place. We should be longing for it; praying for it; standing ready and ever awake for it. It will be born of our belonging, nurtured in fellowship, and stirred into a powerful reality by our daring to speak of the half-buried promptings and unshakeable attractions which are unsettling so many of us today. It is not for tomorrow, next week or next year; now is the time for turning to each other, and recognizing the truth of Cardinal Newman’s words, ‘...we dare not trust each other with the secret of our hearts. We have each the same secret, and we keep it to ourselves, and we fear that, as a cause of estrangement, which really would be a bond of union.’

I have used those words more than once already among these pages, but they are never far from me. They have been circling around me since the day I first read them, after receiving them from a then barely known nun at Stanbrook Abbey. It was inevitable that they should return yet again in the present context, and that they should remind me of a potentially frightening willingness to give voice to my thoughts: a willingness which began to rise in me years ago but which took on a broader and more durable form when I began writing here.